NAACP rallies against PA voter ID law

NAACP President Ben Jealous spoke today at a Philadelphia against the state’s new voter identification law, which requires citizens to have a photo ID to vote.

“We have seen,” Jealous said, “more states, pass more laws, pushing more voters out of the ballot box than we have seen in the last hundred years.”

An appeal of the law has made its way through the court system in Pennsylvania, finally reaching the state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments today. The PA chapter of the NAACP is one of the plaintiffs in case.

In his remarks, Jealous was careful not to be partisan. “This is not a Republican thing,” he said. “It is an extremist thing.”

Jealous did not, however, hide his indignation of the new ID law and several other similar ones which have been attempted across the country. “None of us should be sent back toward a day when we have things which can only be described as a poll tax.”